The present invention is directed to a menu board offering changeable pricing and graphics for providing greater flexibility in usage so that changes to the offerings and messages communicated by the display may be quickly and efficiently changed.
The film developing business represents a prime example where the needs offered by the present invention can be utilized. Film developing services have evolved over the last several decades, from developing conventional black and white film, to the present services of one-hour or overnight film developing services, in which a wide variety of film types and sizes, selective film finishes, and other services and products may be selected by the consumer. To adapt to these variety of services, and to remain competitive, store owners and managers must be able to adjust quickly and to make changes to retail prices, messages, and advertisement displays for products and services, and to convey those options and prices clearly to the consumer. Further, brand images for national and private labels play an important part in establishing consumer confidence in the product offering and the developing process, and must be communicated to the customer for his ease in recognizing the values offered by the retail establishment. Image recognition also serves as a buying impetus. There may also be marketing agreements with manufacturers having well known logos that have to be incorporated into the overall rendition of the information system. The present invention provides a suitable mechanism to satisfy these needs.
There have been various attempts by others to try and meet certain of these needs, but none offer a system that is as complete and efficient as demonstrated by this invention. The various attempts are reflected in the patents discussed below.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,367,604, to Porter, II et al., discloses a menu board including a housing containing a light source, a translucent front panel, and a plurality of parallel, spaced ribs with flanges attached to the face of the panel to support pictorial and alpha-numeric information. One embodiment thereof includes a plurality of substantially parallel flanges extending along the outer surface of the menu board and arranged such that indicia bearing cards or strips can be inserted between adjacent flanges by placing the top edge of a strip, for example, in the space between the board and the downwardly extending portion of a flange, and then between the board and the upwardly extending portion of a spaced flange.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,224,610, to Veazey, discloses a permanent, wall mounted display panel board featuring plural, horizontally disposed L-shaped hanger arms and related snap arms for receiving one or a plural number of profile members, where each such member includes a hanger arm along its top and a complementary snap arm along its bottom. When the profile hanger arm of the profile member is hung on the top of the hanger arm of the wall bracket, the profile member is suspended therefrom. Further, when the respective snap arms are pressed into releasable engagement with one another, the profile member is securely held on the wall bracket.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,357,701, to Grate, discloses a display device similar to Veazey, and which discloses upper and spaced lower L-shaped rails with a pair of intermediate T-shaped rails having legs thereof spaced from a panel wall. Sliding insert panels, bearing information thereon, cooperate with any two of the rails, where different size insert panels may also be used.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,800, to Nelson, discloses an interchangeable display system for mounting to a support backing. The mounting includes a support backing with upper, center, and lower face panels mounted to the support backing and spaced forwardly of the support backing with two elongate slots extending lengthwise between the respective face display elements. They cooperate with the upper slot, and a lower mounting hook on the back of the respective display elements cooperates with the lower slot so that the two hooks retain the display element and can slide along the respective slots to assemble and disassemble the display element in position in front of the mounting.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,487,231, to Grate, discloses a vertically positioned attraction board having a plurality of horizontal parallel tracks, where each track includes an upper and a lower lip for retaining a figure panel therebetween.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,238, to Visocky et al., discloses another type of sign carrier system or menu board utilizing rails for slidably receiving information containing strips. The system thereof includes a frame comprising laterally spaced vertical or longitudinally extending grid guide rail members that have tracks, and are joined at their upper and lower ends by laterally extending cross rails to form a rigid and permanent carrier frame. Modular information grid units are adapted to slide on the guide rails, one after another, to span across the space between the vertical guide rails of the carrier frame.
Despite the presence of these patents, however, a need remains for a menu board graphics display which is of relatively simple construction, and thus lower cost, and yet which provides the features of allowing the user to quickly and easily change the display graphics placed on the menu board graphics display. There is also a need for such an improved menu board graphics display which can be used with modular display insert assemblies having graphics display information provided therewith, and which can be easily changed when, and as, desired.